


Out of Body Experience

by rainstripe



Category: D.Gray-man, Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Those akuma things are in there too, Truth is a bastard, what 14th don't hate me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-19
Updated: 2014-11-20
Packaged: 2018-02-09 12:17:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1982685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainstripe/pseuds/rainstripe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brotherhood ending of the manga/anime- rather than trading Alphonse for Edward's alchemy, Truth has a bit of a... different game in mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Well... Crap

Edward fell rather unceremoniously onto the floor of Truth’s domain, seeing as the _increasingly annoying_ humanoid- god- being, whomever he might be, had taken it upon himself to strip Edward of his remaining automail, not to mention replacing the port on his right arm. The teen had little time to mourn the loss of his arm, grumbling under his breath about just managing to get it back only to have it taken away once again.

Truth stood a few feet away, as mocking as ever with his missing limbs plastered onto his body, the black outline the only thing that the alchemist could really see, or hardly see at all, even with its contrast to the stark world around them. This time he stood before a completely unrecognized door, one coated in writing much like the one leading into his own world, but something was… just slightly different about it. Just enough that any letters Edward could pick out didn’t form full words, everything simply forming a jumbled mess within his mind as he struggled to understand what it meant. More attention grabbing than the writing was the large gem sitting in the center of it all, glowing a bright green, so bright that even he couldn’t tell quite the size of the thing, only that it had to be absolutely massive to be sitting in doors quite that large, surrounded by even larger gears that simply seemed floating inset around it.

“Fucking hell.” He rubbed his one working hand rather harshly over both of his eyes, hoping that the ridiculous looking door would simply disappear and Truth would be standing there alone so he could bargain for Alphonse’s body and soul back. When that proved useless, he turned his attention to Truth, shouting for his attention as it seemed moving wasn’t an option at the moment. “What the hell is your game?! This was going to be easy- my alchemy for him, that’s it- nothing else, no need for- for whatever the hell is behind you!”

_“But Mr. Al-che-mist~”_ Truth sang, showing the smile that was too terribly big for the face it was on. _“My game will be over if I let you leave so soon, wouldn’t you like to play just a little longer?”_ It wasn’t until then that Ed noticed his automail lying next to Truth’s feet, if he had to guess, it was very likely because they hadn’t been there until a few moments before. _“You see, if you’ll agree to play my game, I’ll let you wager something different than your alchemy for **dearest** Alphonse.”_

Edward growled under his breath, knowing that there really wasn’t much of an option here. “And if I say no?” He dared, doing his best impression of someone who was threatening, rather than a two limbed teenager staring down an all-powerful being.

Truth simply tutted under his breath, _“Then you get nothing, sent home with no brother, perhaps even no automail, see how long you last getting those replacements oh **so** close to your mother’s grave~”_ There it was, no real choice in the matter, play along with Truth’s game, get Alphonse back and go home… or, Edward shuddered at the thought, having to try and face everyone, trying to tell them that he failed to get his brother back and just the looks alone would be enough to kill him.

The teen let out a slow, slow sigh, forcing out the words that he knew he would regret. “Fine… fine Truth, let’s play it your way- what am I paying with instead of my alchemy?!” He was nearly seething by the time he got those words out, hating that he caved so easily but also desperately not wanting to lose his brother… not again.

_“You’ll be carrying a little… package for me in this new world, seeing as how much trouble it would cause for its original recipient.”_ Already Truth had moved out of the way of these new doors, the pair swinging open with terrifying slowness, dark hands clawing out the moment there was room for them to slip between the widening cracks. They slithered- they fucking slithered along the ground toward him, grasping onto him and dragging him toward the doors.

_“Ah- Wait just one second.”_ Edward had nearly had a heart attack, only a few feet from the consuming blackness of a world he really, really didn’t want to go to. _“I’ve almost forgotten your last little trade.”_ Truth leaned over the small alchemist, the ever widening smile drawing nearer before he laid a single finger on his forehead, drawing back only after the boy arched within the confines of the black hands, letting out a sharp cry as pain consumed his body. _“After all, you want Alphonse’s body back, so you’ve got to give your body up. Or rather, trade it out for a different one.”_

“Wait- what did you do-“ The alchemist struggled against the hands now still dragging him into the gate, fighting as best he could with the pain that was still digging into his body. “What the hell did you do to me Truth- Truth!” It wasn’t until the doors were almost closed that the humanoid god said his final words,

“Goodbye for now Mr. Al-che-mist- or should I say, Mr. Exorcist~”

The doors slammed him into darkness a moment after, not even giving the alchemist a moment to consider what in the _hell_ Truth might have meant when he said that.

* * *

 

Edward had to at the very least give Truth points for good aim. Crashing through the middle of an abandoned building… though rather painful, did at the very least keep him out of the pouring rain, and out of view of everyone’s prying eyes. At least he hadn’t been dumped in the middle of the street, a little rain dripping down through a rotten ceiling was a rather small annoyance compared to dragging his sorry ass out of the pouring rain while trying to keep a hold of his automail with an arm that currently wasn’t working.

Right then the only thing on his mind was getting his automail on. At the very least it would make sure that he could get away from whatever it was that was sure to be after his hide. Seeing as Truth was so keen on getting him into this world, there had to be something wrong with it. Pain shot up his left arm with every movement he forced from it, grasping blindly in the darkness for the chunks of metal that had to have been dumped nearby.

Actually hooking one seemed like some sort of act of god, apparently having incredibly long, claw-like nails came in handy from time. Dragging his automail leg over was worse than this entire experience combined, lining it up and actually hooking it in… Ed took a deep breath before connecting the nerves, shouting curses at the ceiling now that there was no one to act tough for any longer.

He had just barely gotten a grasp on his arm, dragging it closer inch by inch before stiffening suddenly. There was something incredibly wrong, he could feel it. Then things got weird.

His left eye changed, the entire world shifting into black and white, but there was something wrong, something so incredibly wrong with this picture. There were two men walking through the alleyway next to the house, but then- there was something awful and twisted coming out of both of their bodies, looking broken and rotten and chained- Edward jolted, his stomach heaving as he struggled to try and keep from being heard by whomever- whatever was outside of the house. Luckily for him, new body also meant nothing to lose at the moment. He kept his hand tightly grasping his automail, heading for the door, the window, any sort of exit before those _things_ figured out he was hiding in here.

Given splashing his way across the street may have been a rather poor way of not drawing their attention, he felt far, far better even being just a block further away from the pair. Edward leaned against the wall of the building, letting out a slow sigh before gazing down at the automail clutched in his barely moving hand. “Okay- just… don’t lose sight of monsters… don’t fucking- do not fucking scream Edward.”

The alchemist forced his remaining automail limb back into its port, hesitating a moment before connecting the nerves, his entire body stiffening as he let out a breathy curse.

He had less than a moment to duck when a whole collection of the monsters appeared behind him, drawing a whole new round of gagging from the boy as shells slammed into the wall where his head had been. His left arm was lit up in pain, though he was sure that nothing had hit it. A green light… far too similar to that from the door to be a coincidence, though at this moment he was a bit too preoccupied with monsters trying to kill him to try and figure out what the hell it meant.

“Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck-“ Right now, that was all that was coming into Edward’s head, seeing as currently he was being followed by a mob of monsters and they were trying to kill him and he really _really_ hated Truth. It wasn’t until he was backed up against a wall that he was really facing a problem, these gigantic, grotesque, blimps pointing their cannons at him while he couldn’t really do anything except press himself up against the wall and really hope that he could fall through it sometime soon.

Seeing as walls don’t collapse every day, he was strictly out of luck at the moment. The pain in his left arm finally hit a point that he couldn’t bare it any longer, letting out a shout as he grabbed for it, trying to figure out just what in the _hell_ was up now.

Metal clicked against metal while Ed was once again struggling not to have a heart attack, though for once he might actually have a chance with what he’d been given. His useless hand was now… well- a massive claw, stark white and covered in what looked like a pretty decent armor. Shooting a glance between the claw and the floating… things- he one of those split second, stupid decisions he was known for.

He charged the lot of them.

Given he had no idea how to use the thing, he made pretty good time laying waste to the entire bunch of them. It wasn’t until every last one had crumbled into this awful smelling dust, more overpowering than ever the smell of the rain still pouring down, that he worked at deactivating the claw… thing, and realized that something was wrong. Just one of them had actually managed to hit him, it was barely a scratch even, across his one remaining limb but he was beginning to feel awful.

He stumbled just a few feet away, the store front was reflection enough to see what was going on. His face was covered in stars, gradually growing darker and starting to cover the entirety of his skin. It wasn’t until he collapsed to one knee, his left hand clutching at his chest, that something happened. The crystal, apparently imbedded in his hand, lit up once again and he immediately began to feel its effects, the pressure in his chest lifting, the pain subsiding as well.

The alchemist drew himself back to his feet, finally getting at least a decent look in the glass pane this time around, and not being too fond about what was staring back at him. His hair was white, like an old man’s hair would be… but his face was, hell he couldn’t be any older than he was in his other body- world- whatever. The most unnerving thing about this was the scar covering half his face, Ed could only shudder at what it must have taken to leave a mark like that, especially on a teenager.

Until he could find somewhere a bit more hospitable, it was back to the abandoned house to set up fort and get his bearings. This would mean finding out all he could about this world, and whatever those things were, and how he can keep stopping them.

* * *

There were very few times that Komui actually managed to catch sleep, and when he did manage to sleep, God help the man that has to wake him.

In this case it was a very concerned Lenalee, bearing gifts of coffee to pardon for her abuse to have to wake him as well as for the rather confusing field report that she now had to deliver. Originally it was supposed to be from Reiver, who had originally received the message, but after a bit of begging, Lenalee had caved and gone in to wake her brother.

Sitting his bunny mug a safe few feet away from him, she nudged his shoulder before leaning close to his ear and whispering, “Brother wake up, I’m getting married~ Don’t you want to see your little sister get married?” This was always a sure fire instant wake up for him, though he was rather clingy. Her innocence solved that problem rather easily, allowing her to perch on top of one of his stacks of paper perhaps, or maybe one of the book cases, while he calmed himself down.

“But Lenalee- you’re much too young to get married!” He whimpered at the bottom of the book case, waiting for her to come down. “ _Please_ won’t you come down and let me kill your groom?”

The girl sighed under her breath and held out the pieces of paper that he needed to see, dropping them down, rather directly onto his teary face. “A rather concerning field report, an entire town that was infested with akuma, now they’re all simply disappearing, every night, no matter how many go in. Every report is of the same thing, a white haired exorcist killing off the akuma at night, if the person is ever seen.”

Komui murmured under his breath as he scanned the documents, “Yes… interesting indeed…” He shot his attention up to Lenalee as soon as he was finished with them, tossing them to the floor to join the collection of ignored and unwanted papers. “Go and collect your group, all of them, you’re going to visit that town.”


	2. Hitchhikers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Edward really hates it when people get in his head.

Edward was truly considering bludgeoning his head against the wall. Anything to make this horrid singing stop, anything to make it stop ringing in his head and make the awful memories of Lala fade into the distance a little bit faster. Now he pressed gloved hands over his ears for the umpteenth time that day, desperate to stop the music that had haunted him ever since waking from the nightmare- the nightmares that were starting to become far, far too real to be good.

Originally it had started with waking to a racing heart, maybe a scrape or two from an encounter that in the dream had felt far, far too close. Finally it had come to the horrible pain in his arm following him into consciousness- or rather forcing him out of the nightmare he had been caught in the midst of only to be still trapped within its hold. His arm was twisting before his eyes, the uncontrollable rage that was quickly giving way to terror at what was happening driving the transformation, while all he could do was sit and attempt to keep quiet enough to not draw any unwanted attention as he had before with his panicked shouting.

Luckily the only person to pay his nighttime yelling any attention was the old woman across the street, who bustled herself across the street the first night he’d raised a racket as if the house was going to burn down.

Explaining himself to someone resembling granny so greatly was rather difficult. It involved a large amount of mumbling about trying to fix something and the chair falling out from under him before letting out a heavy sigh, running one inhuman hand through his white hair, though it wasn’t as if she could tell one way or another, and admitting to the nightmares before assuring her he was fine and turning her away for the night.

He did his best to avoid gran- her for his stay in the town, however long he was going to be staying in the town. He slept mostly during the day, hoping that any noise he made would be quieted by the hustle and bustle of everyday life, while the rest of his time was spent hunting the monsters that seemed to flock to the town.

It wasn’t until tonight that he didn’t go out- desperately trying to get off of the floor while the music still rang in his ears and set him off balance. Shoving himself against the wall was about all he could manage, trying to get to the sink he’d managed to scrounge up- hoping to jerk himself the rest of the way out of this nightmare in order to get rid of her _bloody_ singing.

Of course- this only provided to make things worse. Now he glared back at a reflection that was still no longer his own for just a few moments before his eyes caught onto something far worse hanging behind him, a shadow perched just behind him and _smiling_ twistedly while it just stared. Edward felt his mouth go dry, stumbling back a few paces and never taking his eyes off the shadow while it followed directly behind him. It wasn’t until the _singing_ pierced through his terror, knocking him off balance and causing him to really wish he picked up more when his head collided with a stack of books next to the bed.

* * *

Edward shoved himself sitting, growling under his breath rubbing his head before stopping suddenly- his head didn’t hurt, it didn’t ache in the least. He opened his eyes and stumbled back once again, not knowing how he had found himself on his feet. Standing before a giant pool of water, the moon seemed gigantic above him while his own reflection had turned into the shadow that had been standing behind him. It only continued its wide smile while he faced it, only wanting to back away until he noticed what was on the other side of the water.

It was the girl, the one that had appeared only once in his dreams so far, but had been the one time that he had failed to wake up screaming. Now she was crying, sobbing into her hands as if she had just lost everything in the word that she held dear.

Something within him pressed him forward, closer to the water’s edge even while the shadow continued to watch him. Finally he surged forward, reaching through the water in a rather poor attempt to reach the girl, to stop her from crying, to do something.

When he gained no reaction at all from the reflection he made his first attempt to move back, and this is when he realized his grave mistake. An arm had already latched onto his collar, intent on preventing him from moving away and it certainly wasn’t about to let go anytime soon. It wasn’t until the shadow began pulling him in that his vision went back for the second time in just a few minutes.

* * *

 

This time his awakening was far less startling, and far, far less unwelcome, though a bit more stressful than he cared to admit. His bed was underneath him and darkness was all he saw when he opened his eyes, just as he had come to expect from waking up every day. But there was no dying scream in his throat, there was no racing heart in his chest, and there was certainly no strain on his back from where he had fallen on the floor and for some strange reason ended up on the bed.

 _“Ah, that would be me, dear nephew.”_ Murmured a quiet voice, causing the alchemist to jerk himself upright and immediately begin searching the room for whoever had intruded upon his worn down house.

“Who in the hell said that- I swear to God if you don’t show yourself right now-!” His voice failed miserably at convincing them that he was indeed threatening, a rather warm laughter breaking out and tinkling around the room… no- not around the room- around his head… oh _hell_.

_“As you’ve gathered, yes, I am within the confines of your own mind… unless you permit otherwise, Edward. You’ve already become rather well acquainted with my appearance in reflective surfaces, unfortunately that isn’t prone to disappear, however unnerving it may be.”_

Already Edward had had far more than enough, now instead of music in his head, making it impossible to do anything but lie on the floor and wait for it to disappear, he had a talking man. He sorely hoped that he was losing his mind, lest anything else decide to join in and start speaking to him, like a chimera or perhaps a fluffy bunny.

Now there was only a short grunt within his mind, the voice pausing for several seconds before picking its words carefully, _“I am apparently the ‘burden’ you are to be carrying, as Truth so kindly put it. While you may consider me quite the hindrance, my abilities may come in handy, particularly once the Exorcists come about and you are in need of a quick change of appearance… though in my current state, it will have to be brief.”_

Now that was able to get Edwards attention, “You mean, at least for a little- you can make me look like I’m supposed to- and not like… hell I don’t even know who I’m supposed to look like right now.”

 _“Allen Walker, my intended host, though I was certainly not intended to awaken quite so soon, nor were we supposed to be nearly as compatible as you appear to be. But as things appear to be going, yes, if you allow, I could change your appearance- and if matters call for it, I could take over your body, for however short an amount of time- or long is necessary to keep you from dying, or-“_ There was a short coughing noise, _“Less happily, if my family shows up.”_

The alchemist already felt a chill run up his back at even the idea of the voice taking over his body, however calm and reasoning it appeared to be. “Any chance you’d be okay with just going out and killing a handful of monsters tonight? I don’t think I can stay in here any longer, especially not-“

_“Especially just finding out you’ve got a new hitch hiker in your head?”_

“You just read my mind.”

**Author's Note:**

> Well. Lets see where I can go from here, shall we~? 
> 
>  
> 
> PS Thanks for reading ilu so much <3<3<3


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